1 8 0 Y F I C T I O N I N R E V I E W D A V I D G A L E F In 2010, Adam Ross made a big splash with Mr. Peanut, a debut novel billed as ‘‘a police procedural of the soul.’’ The plot follows three interwoven narratives about the sudden demise of a woman from a peanut allergy and the subsequent investigation into her death. Though her husband falls under suspicion, the two detectives on the case are also suspect in their relationships with their spouses. One detective su√ers as his wife becomes increasingly and mysteriously bedridden. In a bizarre projection from real life, the other detective is the infamous Sam Sheppard, the American neurosurgeon accused in 1954 of murdering his wife and making up a story about an unknown assailant. Which is the controlling narrative or accurate point of view? The back-and-forth, as well as circular, aspects of the stories are emphasized by a character named Mobius, after that strange topological construct in which one side of a circular strip becomes L a d i e s a n d G e n t l e m e n , by Adam Ross (Knopf, 244 pp., $25.95) 1 8 1 R both sides. Ross’s novel is a giant metafictional conceit, with a postmodernist edge where the circle becomes vicious. Now comes the short-story collection Ladies and Gentlemen, a chance to see what Ross can do in a short space. As it turns out, short space is little in evidence here. Ross likes a long windup, and a few of the seven stories in the collection are novella length. It’s a form he excels at. ‘‘Futures,’’ the first and longest of the set, follows David Applebow, one of Ross’s savagely introspective protagonists , as he tries to find employment after losing his job as manager of a theater company. Whereas in a short story Applebow might be put through just a few paces before the end, Ross imbues him with a life, semi-failed relationships, a neighbor with a feckless son, and a series of corporate job interviews that give new meaning to the term stress test. Here is the main character in the opening paragraph: Before the interview – in one of his two appropriate suits, this one a blue pinstripe – David Applebow, aged forty-three, passed the time forecasting: predicting first what his interviewer might look like, hoping for a beautiful woman, not merely attractive but uncommonly gorgeous, who would not only be so kind as to give him a job (that is, to save his life) but also to o√er herself as an immediate bonus, on the desk or the rug (if there was one) or the chair if it had two arms, her o√er an act of the greatest generosity, because this kind of thing, however common to a man’s fantasy, never happened , not to Applebow, and if it were to, he would be surprised for the first time in years. In one clause-studded, periodic sentence, Ross presents a whole personality. Applebow’s point of view, intelligent and self-aware, is eye-opening, his character well worth accompanying for sixty or so pages till the unexpected denouement – shocking because we’ve become sympathetic to his plight. But no postmodernist tricks are on display here. Gone are the grand labyrinths. In their place are well-constructed narratives with deft plots and sharply drawn characters. They aren’t meta- fictional, unless you count Ross’s propensity for characters who tell stories. His people are smart and articulate and still get in trouble, 1 8 2 G A L E F Y usually because of others. In these relationships, emotion wars with logic and gets its comeuppance. Ross is particularly good at shrewd sum-ups, often at the start of his narratives. Witness the opening of ‘‘When in Rome,’’ about the disastrous relationship between two boys grown to manhood: ‘‘Regarding my brother, Kevin, my father would always say, ‘You have to try to be available to him.’ I thought he meant that there would inevitably come a time – a...